This research project examined the patterns and factors of population changes in Japan from the 16th century to the early 2000s, using government aggregate statistics and micro-level data drawn from local population registers called ninbertsu-ratame-cho and shumon-aratame-cho during the early modern period and from national surveys in the contemporary period. Dividing the 4 centuries under consideration into 4 periods--the early modern period from the 16th century to the end of Tokugawa era (bakumatsu), the modern precensal period, the modern censal period, and the postwar period, the project sought to empirically analyze the trends and patterns of population changes and their demographic, socioeconomic, and household determinants, combining formal demographic analyses and multivariate analyses.Specifically, we looked at the trends and patterns of mortality at different stages of life, fertility and family building of married women, and first marriage and remarriage in rural communitie
… Mores in northeast, central, and southwestern parts of early modern Japan. Next, we examined the determinants of mortality, fertility, nuptiality, and migration in northeastern rural communities, using event-history analysis. We then analyzed the structure and dynamics of the precensal population changes from the 1870s to 1919, using the Japanese imperial population statistics. The project also examined the trends and regional patterns of stillbirths during the precensal period, and the outbreak of the Spanish flue in 1918-1920 that affected mortality and population of precensal Japan. We next analyzed the trends, patterns, and structural factors of mortality, fertility, and nuptiality from the prewar censal period to the present, using prefectural-level time-series data. Finally, the project looked at the patterns and determinants of fertility declines in postwar Japan, using micro-level data from large-scale national surveys. Conducting a series of event-history analysis, we examined the demographic and socioeconomic determinants of timing of first marriage, and family building patterns applying of Japanese women and men. Less